Thursday, May 21, 2009

Recently, I was telling a Greek that there are non-Orthodox people whose interpretation of the Bible ends up in contradictions, and these people think it virtuous to accept the contradictions they’ve made, to affirm both sides and the contradiction itself.

“This is virtuous? Why?”

“Because it’s how they remain humbly faithful to Scripture. To what they think Scripture says, that is, of course.”

“They have taken the leap, then.”

“What leap?”

“The famous ‘leap of faith,’ the blind leap, the leap into the mysterious darkness.”

So I’ve been pondering that term, “leap of faith,” for a while since that conversation. It means, in effect, you just sort of talk yourself into deciding to believe and then, as it were, you close your eyes and jump. You take the plunge, blindly.

But listen again to what St. Paul says, that verse I am so fond of quoting, Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the reality of things hoped for, the clarity (obviousness) of things unseen.” In other words, faith is not blind; to the contrary, faith is the surer way of perceiving and knowing. You don’t leap into the darkness; you embrace Christ, Who is not a dark unknown, but Who has revealed Himself (and hence, the Father) to us very intimately. You follow Christ, Who said, “Whoever follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of Life.” You don’t decide to throw reason to the winds and accept to be irrational if that’s what it takes, because it doesn’t take that. Christ is God’s own Reason, His Logos, and God is not irrational. (Deciding to overthrow your intellect is emphatically not what the biblical distinction between human reason and God’s Wisdom is all about.) I do not mean we should be able to understand everything, but I do mean we do not have to accept nonsense. Nonsense is always man-made and never inspired by God.

If you have taken the leap into blind faith, please, please, keep searching until you find the Light of the World, in Whom there is no contradiction and “no darkness at all”. Because ultimately, blind faith will fail you. Ultimately, blind faith shows up for what it really is: only a head game, a charade. You don’t need that; none of us needs that. We all need our eyes opened to the Real Thing.

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comments:

Yes... and I am not one who sees the Bible as something full of contridictions...

Yet... the lover of all shades of grey and of meaning (in me) immediatly thinks of St. John the Baptist asking Christ if He is the One...

Christ answers to St. John about what He has been doing and later says St. John is the greatest of prophets...

and Christ says, after St. Thomas sees and touchs Christ, that blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe...

So I agree; Christ is real and we can be comforted in this; but also God can bless those who are believing without seeing; to me that is what faith means; we are, as Hebrews says, hoping in and for what is yet unseen.

I have had enough experiences in my life to say yes, I have experienced the mercy and love of God; I can say in this way that I have seen; yet often I have to trust God again today, even when I do not see what is going on in my life or I am afraid; I am rather like the Israelites who see and still struggle later to believe. My spiritual Father comforted me once by reminding me that God alwasy came back to the Israelites to remind them of His works and His salvation...

May God have mercy on us!

I hope this day is a good one for you! I always enjoy reading your posts and when I see a new one come up in bloglines, I am happy. :)

We all believe without seeing, in one sense. That is, unlike St. Thomas, we do not see with our physical eyes. But faith does give us spiritual eyes, not meaning we know or understand all things -- far from it! But meaning that our trust in God is not an arbitrary decision, a blind leap. It is not irrational, not "just because." It's because God in some fashion, however mystical, has actually revealed Himself to us in a way that makes faith seem quite natural, and in fact the only way to go.

Right... I see what you mean.... I agree, it is not an arbitrary decision; I guess the best way I can articulate what I think about faith is from Elizabeth Goudge's book _The Middle Window_ where a man is fighting for a king who is most beloved but also seems to be losing the war. The man ends up alone, still on the king's side. He realizes then what faith is - fighting when victory is not in sight.

perhaps this shows only my low spiritual understanding (I don't really know how to evaluate this one!) but the man knew who he was fighting for, loved the king, but at sometime was alone in darkness and still kept on fighting. So not a "blind" faith, but a deliberate couragous battle when all odds seemed against him. (Of course for us Christ has already won the final battle...)

I really respect you and appreciated your comment responding to mine. I cannot affirm this [my respect] enough, actually! Thank you for blogging.